World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for the United States

Prayers naming the United States have followed storms, tornadoes, wildfires and floods across many states, along with elections and political tension, gun violence, and questions of migration and race. Health, mental health and the well-being of ordinary households appear often, as do thanksgivings for its landscapes and wild places.

Lord, Help Us: A Prayer for Voters and Elections from the USA to Zimbabwe (August 25, 2016)

“Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” ~ 1 Kings 3:9 Lord, help us. We mean that earnestly, sincerely, indeed prayerfully, not as an epithet. We are not taking your name in vain, we […]

The True Riches: Prayers After Storm Earl, Macedonia’s Floods, and Ethiopia’s Protests (August 11, 2016)

Loving God, Ancient of Days, so often we lift our prayers to you driven by our emotions. Frightened by the evident dangers- natural and man-made- which the world faces, we cry out clumsily like little children. Enraged by the evident injustices the world faces, we strike out verbally to establish our own opposition. Squelched by […]

The Lord Looks at the Heart: A Prayer for Yazidi Women, Hungry North Koreans, and Our Blindness (August 4, 2016)

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7, NIV Loving God, we pray today for the same instruction that you gave to Samuel: […]

Forgive Us Our Poverty of Spirit: Prayers After the Killings in Japan, Germany, and France (July 28, 2016)

‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy’.  ~ Ezekiel 16:49 You, creator God, are merciful and just; loving all that you created and seeing that your works are good.   You draw all creation to you with […]

Make Us Story-Tellers and Memory Bearers: A Prayer Remembering Elie Wiesel (July 21, 2016)

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place […]

Teach Us to Listen: A Prayer After the Attack in Nice and a Week of Violence (July 14, 2016)

There is a terrifying passage in ‘I and Thou’ by the Jewish mystic Martin Buber in which God says ‘I have sunk my hearing in the deafness of mortals’.  If this should be even partly true what a tremendous responsibility it places upon us to listen, to listen to each other with our whole attention, […]

Lord, Have Mercy: A Prayer After Dallas, Baton Rouge, Istanbul, and Baghdad (July 7, 2016)

This has been one of those weeks, God…one of those weeks in which too many things have been happening- in my own life and in the lives of the rest of your children throughout the world. Here in the United States, we are reeling with not one, but two shootings of black men by police […]

All Good Gifts: A Summer Prayer After the Istanbul Airport Attack and for South Sudan’s Hunger (June 30, 2016)

God of the seasons, we thank you for summer.  You surround us with evidence of revival, eternal life, abundance, resurrection in every field, every garden, every flower bed, every forest, every vacation spot and swimming hole. The discovery in Nepal of a tiny but flourishing colony of birds – red-faced liocichla – thought to have been […]

Lord, Have Mercy: Prayers for Libya, Syria, Nauru’s Detained Refugees, and the Legacy of Jo Cox (June 23, 2016)

Violent protests, burning and looting in Pretoria, South Africa, over mayoral election… Foreign supporters of ISIS have taken over Sirte, Libya, murdering, torturing, crucifying Muslims and Christians… Russian fighters are dropping cluster bombs in Syria, indiscriminately endangering and killing civilians and children as well as fighters… Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Violence and hatred […]